The real anti-Hanukkah fundamentalists

The extreme refusal to accept reality and refuse to celebrate with the President-elect is evidence that ultra-left liberalism has become a fundamentalist religion.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler, 17/12/16 17:09

Prof. Phyllis Chesler

INN:PC

Prof. Phyllis Chesler

The writer, a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum and recipient of the 2013 National Jewish Book Award, is the author of sixteen books, including Women and Madness, Woman's Inhumanity to Woman, and The New Anti-Semitism. She has written four studies about honor killing, Her latest books are An American Bride in Kabul, (Palgrave Macmillan) and Living History: On The Front Lines for Israel and the Jews.Professor Chesler may be reached at her website www.phyllis-chesler.com

Proudly, loudly, one American Jewish organization after another (the ADL, Union for Reform Judaism, National Council of Jewish Women, American Jewish Committee, Hadassah, and Jewish Federations of North America), unbelievably, refused to celebrate Hanukkah at the party given at the Trump Hotel in D.C. hosted by the Conference of Presidents o Major Jewish Organizations and the Ajerbaijan Embassy. J Street refused to come as well.

This is madness. This extreme refusal to accept reality is also malevolently childish. Clearly, these Jewish-American groups' religious affiliation is not with Judaism or with Israel but with a secular and anti-Zionist Democratic Party and with ultra-left liberalism. This is their religion and, unfortunately, they are fundamentalists.

While I share the fear about how Trump's victory may embolden those who oppose women's reproductive freedom, I also think that as Jews, Americans, and Westerners, we must give the Trump Administration a chance.

President-elect Trump is not anti-Semitic nor are members of his team. On the contrary. They are pro-religion, pro-Judaism, and pro-Israel. I could not say the same about Obama's team.

I doubt that Trump, personally, is anti a woman's right to choose. He's a New York City kinda guy. But even if his followers (and his choice of Vice-President) are anti-choice, there are other issues that matter, such as the survival of the West--and that of Israel; stopping Jihad attacks on infidels and on other Muslims; helping to create stability in the Muslim countries where genocidal chaos now reigns; and above all, stopping Iran.

I know I am risking quite a lot in sharing what I am about to write, but how can I keep silent?

Loudly, proudly, I've published at a variety of conservative websites since 2003, including Breitbart where not one of my feminist pieces was ever challenged or rejected. My work on anti-Semitism and on Israel had strong territorial competition from Orthodox Jew and Harvard Law School graduate, Joel Pollak, and from Aaron Klein, who was tapped to run their Jerusalem bureau. These gentlemen are slightly to the right of Jabotinsky when it comes to their pro-Israel politics--but occasionally, one of my pieces about anti-Semitism or about Israel made it onto the site.

I doubt that Steve Bannon and I ever spoke but the website he ran was not anti-Semitic. Further, in my opinion, the Breitbart site critiqued human rights abuses in Muslim countries accurately--my "official" editor was Sebastian Gorka. But, in these times, left-liberals view any critique of Islam as a racist Thought Crime punishable by slander and ostracism. One can critique Christianity and Judaism until the proverbial cows come home. Islam is off limits among left-liberals, who are busy confusing Arabs and Africans as well as viewing a religion as if it is a race.

The large, looming danger is coming to us from the alliance between Muslim-world Jew-hatred and Western leftist Jew hatred.Is President-elect Trump's team anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, or racist? Somehow, I strongly doubt it. Are Jews currently endangered by Jew-hatred from both the "alt-right" and the "alt-left?" Absolutely. But the larger, looming danger is coming to us from the alliance between Muslim-world Jew-hatred and Western leftist Jew hatred.

I've been interviewed several times by Governor Mike Huckabee, who is moving in Trump's circles, and let me assure you: He is right on target when it comes to Islamic Jihad, Judaism, and Israel. No, we did not discuss women's reproductive freedom but as I've just said: These are not the only crucial issues we face.

Years ago, I was interviewed by David Frum on the radio. He asked me what the 21st century Phyllis Chesler would say to the young Phyllis Chesler who published "Woman and Madness" in 1972. I answered:

"I do not regret or recant my feminist ideals nor have I betrayed our original vision of universal human rights as many other feminists have done by becoming multi-cultural relativists and abandoning the cause of freedom for feminists and dissidents trapped in Muslim countries. What will it mean to have an Equal Rights Amendment or an even more icon-clad legal right to abortion, if we find ourselves bombed back to the 7th century? I'd just be standing there, holding a scrap of legal paper in the midst of a nuclear blizzard."

What will we have gained, if the West commits suicide by embracing barbarism in a misguided frenzy of politically correct anti-racism?

What do Jewish-American groups gain by proving that they are uber-loyal to the American political party that has just lost the election? And that, even for love of Zion, they reject Israel's best hope in terms of re-setting the alliance which Obama tried to destroy?